[FM Discuss] booki mobile makes its first trip

Wed Nov 10 04:23:20 PST 2010

hey all,

so a booki mobile update. 

some photos here:
http://adam.engagetv.com/bookimobile_photos

well...i have to say this was probably a crazy idea from the start. i
was motivated largely because a mobile book producing lab is just a
great idea and partly from frustration because we have been trying to
work with Drumbeat for some time and it was not going anywhere. i did
not and do not understand this since all the aims of drumbeat coincide
with what we do however we have had no support from them. in addition
there are groups that have not tried to work with drumbeat and have had
a huge profiling at the Drumbeat events. The Free Knowledge Academy is
one such example - they got major billing at the event where we were not
even initially invited.

so apart from loving the idea of the book mobile i was also frustrated.
i think DB should work with us however there is a blockage somewhere. i
didnt want to give up so the book mobile was a last trial to convince DB
they should take us seriously. 

there are many reasons why i want DB to come our way and work with us.
its not just ideological (a shared ideology)  but thats a big part of
it. it is also because they have the power to profile projects which
would help us tremendously and they also have the power to fund which is
also interesting to us. also if i was to write the aims of Drumbeat down
on paper they would coincide with ours pretty well and it just makes
sense to me to make alliances when the match looks good. its about
creating synergies as much as anything.

on top of all this the book mobile (or now called the 'booki mobile') is
just a good idea. so many times i tell people about booki and they get
it conceptually but when i give them a book they are amazed. that last
step is important and now the booki mobile can do just that. take the
technology to the people so they understand its intent and utility. sure
its not the optimum way to do things, we also need to improve PR and
other outreach channels but it is one very inspiring channel for us to
show what we do. additionally i now have the equipment to make books for
1-2 euro to send to reviewers etc to get their attention. previously i
had been doing this by buying lulu.com copies of our books and shipping
them without letters etc directly from lulu to the reviewers. this is
costly as lulu is expensive and it is not good to 'cold call' like this.
buying lulu books and having them rerouted through my home address,
adding a letter, and sending on is also just a stupid idea. so now i can
make books and send them directly and cheaply.

anyways. so with 6 weeks to go until the DB fest i wrote some
sponsorship proposals for the book mobile. i sent them away expecting
negative replies and instead got a +ve response from francophonie.org.
Yay!!! however that meant i needed to get more $ else we had only 1/3 of
the money required. the total cost of the project on paper was approx
10,000 euro but in fact the cost was about 12000 and we got about 8000
in sponsorship. 

so, i wrote to civicrm and they said yes :) and also iCommons and
Mozilla came in. thats cool. so all that came in with about 2 weeks
until the fest. i was of course also moving house and i had 2 sprints
and several presentations about fm before the event. so it wasnt easy
but i researched the equipment and found it all, purchased it, and threw
it in the booki mobile (vw t4 van) and drove it 2000 km to barcelona
(took 3 days).

the equipment consisted of:
1x Fastback 15XS binder (second hand from Munich)
1x Samsung 2850 duplex lazer printer (black and white) (new)
1x Ideal 3915-90 paper cutter (second hand from Berlin)
1 x t4 vw van (second hand from berlin)
2 x laptops (mine)
1 x robocraft cutter (new)
heaps of paper
scissors, cutting boards, rulers, power cables etc

we drove the van and all in it to the festival and set up immediately.
the first day was about setting up the site (the fest was 2 days) and
the second day was about producing the books. that was in the theory and
it worked except that it took a lot longer to test everything and refine
the workflow. essentially all worked (except an inkjet printer that I
managed to break by trying to set it up too quick) except we had a huge
problem with the duplex printing. duplex printing means a printer can
take a page print one side then suck it back and print the other side.
the big issue here was that the duplex printing did not print the front
and back pages in the same position. this was frustrating and we spent a
long time working this out. Janet was there trouble shooting and she
worked it out. essentially we had to use the printer as a 'normal' (sans
duplex) printer, print all the even sides take them out flip them over
and then print the odd sides on the back. this was a stupid way to do
things but the only way that worked. 

we used the Booki User Guide as the example book although we also made a
few other books for those that came to the booki mobile and wanted to
make a book :) 

so. the feedback was tremendous. although we spent much of the time
working out the systems i actually spent a lot of my time talking to
people that were interested in the process, floss manuals, booki, and
the booki mobile. so much time actually that it slowed down the set up!
still, it was good to get people excited and involved so that was ok.

in the end we made some books and they looked beautiful. 
http://adam.engagetv.com/bookimobile_photos/book.png
http://adam.engagetv.com/bookimobile_photos/interior.png

then we packed up, spent a tired day in barcelona and drove back to
berlin (it took 28hours + one sleep stop to get back).

so. the booki mobile did what it had to do in terms of actually making
books and also it inspired alot of people. it will also have a
tremendous future. those aspects i consider a success. however i dont
think DB cared and in my own mind i have given up on Drumbeat. its only
so long that we can knock at the DB door and be ignored before we get
the idea we are not wanted. i think it is worthwhile trying to win the
DB open web award for profiling reasons but apart from that i think its
not interesting anymore to pursue the DB channel.

so, the bookimobile lives and its a cool thing :) next i will blog about
it, send pr, send sponsorship reports and look for funding for running
costs...

:)

adam

-- 
vote for booki in the Open Web Awards!

Booki (the latest FM project - http://www.booki.cc - a collaborative
publishing platform) is in the final of the Open Web Awards.
Great! We are 1 of 3 projects. If we win we get 5000 which we will use
to do a code sprint on a tropical island somewhere ;)

please please please register :
http://www.drumbeat.org/user/register

and vote for us:
http://www.drumbeat.org/project/open-web-publishing

and pass this around!!!! :)

Adam Hyde
Founder FLOSS Manuals &
Booki Project Manager 

Contact Information
German mobile : + 49 177 4935122
Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
irc : irc.freenode.net #flossmanuals

"Free manuals for free software"
http://www.flossmanuals.net/about

Free Software for making Free Books
http://www.booki.cc/